


Stepping Out

by horselizard



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Fluff, Holo-rope, Humor, M/M, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:43:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/pseuds/horselizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rimmer is at the end of his tether... in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stepping Out

**Author's Note:**

> If it [happened on a VHS cover](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/A1aAZqvCQ%2BL._SL1500_.jpg), it totally counts as canon, right?
> 
> With thanks to marijuanagin for putting the idea in my head, Saylee for ensuring that it stayed there, and linearbftw for patient explanations of basic physics.

“I don't know _how_ I let you talk me into this!” Rimmer yelled. Of course, as sound doesn't carry through the vacuum of space, he couldn't _hear_ himself yelling. This was slightly disconcerting. And as he was already extremely disconcerted, he could have done without it.

“Hey, come on,” Lister exclaimed. “You get to experience being weightless! It's fun!”

Lister's exclamation was transmitted straight into his aural systems via a linkup with his projection – in just the same way as his mental impulse to let out a panicked yell had been converted into soundwaves back on board, and transmitted through Lister's spacesuit comms. This, too, Rimmer could have done without. He found the sound of his own voice far, far preferable to the sound of Lister's; to be treated to the latter but not the former was just galling. (He didn't stop to consider that Lister's thoughts on the matter might be rather similar.)

“I'm already weightless, you moron,” he raged back, “I'm composed entirely of light!”

“Yeah, but it's not the same, is it?” Lister replied serenely. “Your projection behaves differently out here. 'S what I mean.”

“Does it really?!” Rimmer shrilled. “I hadn't noticed!”

“Oh eh, Rimmer, man,” Lister sighed, “I just thought it'd make a nice change... stretch our legs a bit, y'know? Try and enjoy it, can't you?”

“I do _not_ believe this is safe,” Rimmer whined undeterred, tugging at the length of rope which was knotted tightly round his waist.

“Of course it's safe!” Lister insisted. “It's how they used to take holograms on space walks in the olden days.”

“You mean, a little over three million years ago, which from _our_ perspective was within the last decade?” Rimmer huffed.

“Yeah,” Lister agreed brightly. “In the olden days.”

Rimmer rolled his eyes. “Be that as it may, there's no way anything can be safe when the other end of it is attached to _you_.”

“Hey! I resent that,” Lister said, with an almost-successful attempt at a poker face. “What would I ever do that would be unsafe?”

He punctuated his point by pulling on the other end of the holo-rope, sending Rimmer gently spinning towards him. “Argh!” the hologram yelped, taken by surprise. “What the smeg are you doing?”

“You said you weren't feeling safe,” Lister grinned. “Maybe you'll feel better if you come a bit closer.”

He kept a careful hold on the rope, slowly taking in the slack as Rimmer found himself drifting nearer and nearer to his smirking bunkmate. “Lister, stop it!” he shrieked, limbs flailing in empty space.

“ 'S not me, any more,” Lister replied matter-of-factly. “It's the inertia.”

“Well, _make_ it stop, then!” Rimmer spluttered, tugging futilely on his end of the rope in a desperate attempt to avoid the impending slow-motion head-on collision.

“God, it's no wonder you never passed the astronavigation exam,” Lister laughed. “Look, just stay calm, Rimmer.”

“Stay calm?!” Rimmer repeated incredulously, clinging to the holo-rope for dear afterlife. Finally, the knot at his navel bumped against Lister's outstretched fist, and the two of them bounced gently apart. They came to rest with barely a foot's distance between them, Rimmer's legs sticking haphazardly through Lister's, and Lister's hand closed over Rimmer's on the taut stretch of rope.

“Lister,” Rimmer began shakily, his wide, terrified eyes locked on Lister's, “if you _ever_ do something like that again...”

“I said stay calm, Rimmer,” Lister smiled. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he set the loop of rope lazily spinning through 180 degrees about the vertical axis, taking Rimmer with it.

“What the smeg are you doing _now?!_ ” Rimmer howled, as Lister, and the immense stretch of dirty red hull behind him, slowly rotated out of his vision.

Suddenly, he saw gloved hands reaching round his waist, the palms gently pressing themselves to the knotted coil of holo-rope, taking unusual care not to pass through the boundary of his projection more than could be helped. He felt himself float very slightly backwards, then come to rest again with the faintest of bumps.

Gradually, as his panic subsided, he managed to make sense of what had happened. Behind him, his belt of holo-rope had come to a stop against the front of Lister's spacesuit. In front of him, Lister had clasped his hands gingerly over his stomach, ensuring that the rope, which remained in a taut loop around the edge of Rimmer's projection, would stay securely pressed against him.

And, by extension, ensuring that Rimmer would, too.

“There. Feeling safer now?” came Lister's soft voice in his ears.

“No smegging chance,” Rimmer grumbled.

The coil of rope shifted slightly with his simulated breathing, a psychosomatic luxury which he retained even in an airless atmosphere. It gradually slowed as he regained his cool, and focused his attention for the first time on the vista of twinkling blackness spread before him.

He stared, struck by an unexpected sense of wonder, at a landscape of stars never before seen by humans, sensing the presence close behind him of the only human who ever would see them. It was stupid how they'd ended up here, plain stupid. But at moments like this, gazing out at an infinity of distant suns, with all the faint but hopeful promise of undiscovered planets that they held, it almost – _almost_ – seemed worth it.

And, though he would never admit it, he _did_ feel safer now.

They stared out into the vastness of space together, their ears filled with each other's awed silence, and slowly, Rimmer brought his hands up to rest inside the gloves which hovered against his waist.


End file.
